Photosynthesizing Dead in Warehouse

Forum Expanded 2025

Wooden boxes topped with glass cases sit in an empty house that has stood vacant for a long time. The situation seems at once like an isolated art museum, a resource-depleted near future, and a private house under interior construction. Scenes of fruits decaying in the boxes are interspersed with correspondence from a researcher studying the kusōzu, Buddhist paintings that depict nine stages of a decaying corpse and are associated with the practice of realizing impermanence.
Photosynthesizing Dead in Warehouse is a neo-kusōzu in a sense, with its documentation of decay and questions about death. The narration consists of fragments of emails, intertwined with various excerpts from the study of the kusōzu, and contemplates the reason for our symbolic experience of death – or our inability thereof. This work is an essay film about looking at things as they are, making up stories in an attempt to make sense of them, and, as we follow these two axes that cast shadows on each other, what binds and liberates us.

by Jeamin Cha (Director)
with Yuki Konno, Anthony Kim, Unji Go, Yeonhee Bae, Woo Seok Byeon, Eunbin Cho, Heewon Jang, Jayong Lee South Korea 2024 Japanese, Korean 30' Colour International premiere | Documentary form

With

Yuki Konno
Anthony Kim
Unji Go
Yeonhee Bae
Woo Seok Byeon
Eunbin Cho
Heewon Jang
Jayong Lee

Crew

Director	Jeamin Cha
Cinematography	Seongtaek Lee, Dongseok Shin
Editing	Jeamin Cha
Sound Design	Guenchae Kim
Producers	Jeamin Cha, Hyejin Byun

Produced by

JeaminCha Studio

Photos

Jeamin Cha

Jeamin Cha is an artist based in Seoul whose practice spans film, performance, installation, and writing. Cha’s work deals with the relationship between the psychological, emotional, and physical. She approaches the reality of individuals through processes of field studies and notes personal interviews of hard-to-articulate experiences. Cha has participated in numerous group exhibitions and festivals and has recently held solo exhibitions at Ilmin Museum of Art, Salzburg Kunstverein, and Kadist San Francisco. Following Autodidact (2014) and Twelve (2016), this is her third participation in Forum Expanded.

Filmography

2013 Fog and Smoke · Trot, Trio, Waltz · Chroma-key and Labyrinth 2014 Autodidact · Hysterics 2016 Twelve 2018 On Guard · Almost One 2019 Sound Garden 2020 Ellie’s Eye · Working on the Chairs 2022 Maneuver in Place · Nameless Syndrome 2024 Photosynthesizing Dead in Warehouse

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2025